How to Register a Complaint

The Behemoth of Instruments
part one: the console
part two: the pipe room
part three: how to register a complaint

The organ isn't merely another instrument. It's a whole lot of other instruments! Each "stop" controls an entire section, or rank, of pipes with a specific sound. Activating that stop allows the organist access to that particular sound. Deep in the bowels of the organ, however, the airflow has been prevented, or stopped, from flowing through the other groups of pipes, which is what gave someone in the distant past the strange notion of calling the thing a stop rather than a start.

It isn't necessary to use only one stop at a time, however, and the endless combinations of groups of two, three, or a dozen stops is part of what makes organ playing so fascinating. Actually, it is a lot like orchestration.

Suppose you are writing a piece for an orchestra, and you decide that you'd like a flute to come in and play a melody by itself. Or, suppose you change your mind and decide to give the tune to both the flute and the oboe player. Or the flute, the oboe, the horn, and a couple of xylophones (yikes!). One stop could represent each of these players, and pulling the knobs (or, in some cases, pushing buttons) for each one would cause each "player" to join his colleagues in playing whatever noise they are making at the moment.

Unlike a modern orchestra, however, no two organs are quite alike. They don't have the same list of stops, some have quite a few more than others, and the ones they might have in common often have slightly different sounds according to the way they are built.  When used in combination, some stops might overpower other stops on some organs and be well balanced on others. And that doesn't even begin to address the vast differences in organ building in different countries or different centuries. The organ has quite a history.

All of which has caused some composers to throw up their hands when it comes to indicating what types of sounds they want from their piece. Most pre-nineteenth century composers don't bother to indicate what stops they wanted for their music (including Bach), so the organist tries to make an informed decision, mixing practicality, historical authenticity, and his imagination.

The art of making these sorts of decisions is called "registration". In many recent compositions the composer may have indicated which sounds he or she wants with a set of instructions at the head of the composition that may closely resemble the recipe for cousin Ed's pastry:

Sw.  fl 8',4', pr 8' gdt. 16'  ns. 2 1/3'
Gt.   trpt. 8'  sqst. 4'  ob. cl. 4'
ped. 16' fl   32' bombard
couple sw. to gt.

(incidentally, this would call forth a rather odd sound)

Add some vinegar, or a 4 foot flute traverso in measure 9 (where the score politely asks you to "add 4' flute traverso") and you are good to go.

In such a case it is up to the organist to attempt to come as close to these as possible to these concoctions on their own particular instrument. Sometimes that calls for some ingenuity, particularly if your composer worked in a large French cathedral and you are playing a small Midwestern organ which does not have many of your composer's favorite stops.

There are three basic families of sound. One is these are flutes. Their ranks consist of flue pipes (missing T) and they sound like...well, flutes. This may seem a bit dull, but there is quite a lot you can do with flutes. For one thing, you can brighten up your basic tone considerably by combining it with the upper octaves. For the following piece I used a combination of flute stops of 8 foot, 4 foot and 2 foot vintage.  That piece would be Hieronymus Praetorius's  Veni Creator Spiritus.

Employing simply an 8 foot flute stop can be quite mystical at times, however. The indubitable Michael Praetorius (no relation) wrote this not-exactly crowd pleaser for Trinity Sunday some 400 years ago, and I'd like to play it for you:  Here's  O Lux Beata Trinitas. (4 mins.)

There was a time when organs sounded like that, when only one sound was available instead of many. But the plain vanilla days went out about 400 years ago in most churches; there are still a few very tiny organs with only one or two stops in their arsenal in small chapels and small rooms. One particular organ installed in a conservatory practice room comes to mind. It was possessed of an 8 foot flute and a 4 foot "Regal" whose very unique noise simply can't be communicated in writing. Unfortunately I did not have my digital recorder in those days so you can't hear it. Let me simply suggest that the devil will certainly want one.

Stretching our imaginations to their limit we can conceive of the regal as a kind of "reed" stop. This family of stops adds brilliance to the organ. Reed pipes have reeds inside them which vibrate when the air is pushed through them, the same way a clarinet or an oboe produce sound. They can be very magnificent or very screechy depending on the organ. I knew an electronic organ once whose reed stops where marked in red. This was only a fair warning. However, on a well-built pipe organ those reeds add a grandeur that you won't get otherwise. They are responsible for the sound of the Widor Toccata in this recording, which I recommend as long as you have 6 minutes to listen to it.

The reed stops are rarely employed by themselves even if the flute stops go unnoticed in the mix. Even less noticeable if you have the organ opened up full throttle (which it is during the last 20 seconds of the above recording; you are listening to every stop that organ has all at once) are the string stops, which, although they might not mirror stringed instruments as closely as you may expect, still provide a beautiful halo of sound. French composers in particular seem to love them.

I have developed a fondness for music from the Renaissance (1400-1600 or so) and in particular am playing all the surviving organ pieces of Michael Praetorius this year (you noticed?). One of them, a shorter number entitled "A Solis Ortus Cardine" I've decided to register for strings alone. It puts me in a contemplative mood.

Sometimes employing an individual stop, or solo, can have an interesting effect. The Sesquialtera has a fascinating sound. My cat thinks so, anyway. Bach apparently thought so too, and in one of the very rare instances when any registration appears on his music (assuming it can be traced to Bach himself) the organist is instructed, at the beginning of "A Mighty Fortress" (B.W.V. 720) to employ a bassoon stop (which my old organ didn't have) and a Sesquialtera (which we did). The stop makes its entrance about 8 seconds into the piece. Listen to "A Mighty Fortress"   I decided to follow up that colorful opening with a pair of trumpets (coupling one manual's trumpet stop to the other) at 1:14 and bring them back in combination with other colorful stops for that blaze of glory at the end. The piece is just over 3 minutes long.

The organ at Faith U.M.C. has a stop called a Krummhorn. I'm not generally a fan of Krummhorns. I sometimes call them crummyhorns because of their grating and abrasive sound. This one sounds pretty good, I think. I used it one Christmas in one of the stranger combinations I've registered on that organ. The Krummhorn is heard in combination with two of the string stops, which almost gives Jacob Praetorius's short piece the sound of an old Apple computer (if you were around in the 80s you can almost hear it now). This piece is only a minute and a half long. Have a listen to Grates nunc omnes.

Incidentally, you were wondering about the title of this page? This will come as a shock to my wife, but I have an occasional weakness for awful puns. This is one of them. A "Complaint" is actually a type of music. It is a lament, and was quite popular during the middle ages, as a sung dirge. In rare instances, more modern composers for the organ have titled their pieces after the French version of this "plantus", that is, a "Complainte." If you play one of them, you naturally have to make decisions about what stops to pull, that is, to "register" them. You can send your unflattering responses to this revelation to my cat (erasmus@pianonoise.com).  I'll be busy practicing.

michael@pianonoise.com